Pathfinder

by Orson Scott Card

  The word “inquisition” had a bit of a smile in it, no doubt meant to dispel fear, hinting that it wasn’t a real inquisition. Yet that was the word the general had chosen to use, and hardly by accident. No matter how nice the general might wish to seem to be, he still had the power to put them to torture or anything else he pleased, and Umbo wasn’t all that reassured to recall that the general had affirmed that they couldn’t be treated as guilty until there was some kind of court verdict about Rigg’s supposed conspiracy.

  When Rigg joined the general and started toward the captain’s quarters, Umbo came along because it never crossed his mind to do otherwise. But the general noticed him at once, and gestured with his trailing hand for Umbo not to stay with them. This would be a solo inquisition, apparently. Though Umbo had no doubt that his time would come.

  There was no way to linger around the door and hope to overhear some of their conversation, so Umbo went to the galley, where the cook ordered him to go away.

  “I just wanted to help,” said Umbo.

  “What do you know about cooking?”

  “Everyone in Fall Ford knows how to cook something,” said Umbo. “‘It’s a useless man starves without a wife to cook for him.’”

  “Is that some kind of proverb?” asked the cook.

  “Yes, sir,” said Umbo.

  “Then you come from a place full of very stupid people,” said the cook.

  “Thank you sir,” said Umbo. “Does that mean I can help?”

  “If you break one dish I’ll knock you on the head, crack your skull, and pry it open like a hardboiled egg.”

  “I hope word doesn’t get around that you’re as likely to serve chopped boy in your stew as mutton or pork.”

  “Wouldn’t matter if I did,” said the cook. “Anybody’s on this tub, they’ll eat what I serve or try their luck at catching something edible in this saint-forsaken river.”

  Within moments, the cook had Umbo running errands, and to Umbo it felt like being home again. It took no particular effort or even a detour to glance into the spot where he had put the knife and see that it was still there. But he wouldn’t take it now. He didn’t know yet whether the People’s Army even knew about the ancient knife—this general seemed to have an obsession with old things and it was better if he didn’t know about the one thing that Rigg had really stolen.

  Finally the cook set him down to pare turnips to make the mash for the next day’s breakfast. It was slow work, but mindless as long as you were careful not to let your finger get added to the mix.

  And as he sliced and chopped, Umbo thought about what he knew he would have to do. Somehow he must figure out how to do the thing that he had already been seen doing—travel back in time to this morning to give warnings to himself and to Rigg.

  Wouldn’t it have been nice of his future self to give him some hint about how he was going to learn how to talk to people in the past?

  One thing was certain—Umbo had never seen any of the paths that Rigg was always talking about. So even if he succeeded in causing himself to slow down—or speed up, or whatever it was he did—it was an open question about whether he would ever be able to see anybody from the past—even the past of just this morning.

  And before long, he was trying to do to himself what he had so easily done to Rigg, speeding him up—or slowing him down, depending on how you looked at it. But it was as if his talent were a long sword—he could easily use it to touch others, but his arms were too short or the sword too long for him to stab himself.

  It was like Wandering Man had said, during the brief time he gave Umbo a little training: You have to find it the way you teach yourself to wiggle your ears.

  Since Umbo had never knowingly wiggled his ears—nor known anyone who could—the example was wasted on him.

  But then Wandering Man went ahead and taught him how to wiggle them. He had made Umbo look in the mirror and then smile his broadest grin. “See how your ears move up just a little when you smile?”

  Umbo could see it easily, once it had been pointed out.

  “That means you have the muscles to wiggle your ears, and they’re working. What you do is smile and then unsmile, again and again, only now you’re concentrating on the muscles that draw your ears up and back when you smile. Smile hard, and then try to move your ears again only without any of the smiling.”

  Umbo tried and tried. “Nothing happens,” he said.

  “But you’re mistaken,” said Wandering Man. “Something very important has happened. You’re aware of those muscles. It takes a while for the nerves to reinforce their connections so the muscles will contract without dragging all the rest of the smile with them. Practice it whenever you think of it, smiling hard and then trying again without the smile. Gradually, the muscles will strengthen. Just make sure you work both ears equally, so you don’t end up with only one ear you can control.”

  It took only three days before his ears were moving on command—either together or individually. Within another couple of weeks, he was a champion ear-wiggler.

  And, as Wandering Man had predicted, the analogy was nearly perfect. Previously when he had thrown his little web of speed onto another person, it had been willy-nilly and ragged—it gave Mother a headache when he did it to her repeatedly. But with practice, even though he had no idea what was actually happening inside him, he began to be able to control the thing, to make it steady, to make it strong. It just took concentration and repetition, hour after hour.

  Now he would have to do it all over again, this time learning how to include himself, and only himself, within his zone of speed.

  The only sign he had that he might have made any progress was when the cook came in and said, gruffly, “Where’d you put the rest of them?”

  “They’re all in the pot,” said Umbo.

  The cook looked doubtful, but came and looked in the pot and then turned back to Umbo. “Nobody ever peeled them that fast.” But then he examined them closely and had to admit that Umbo had done it exactly right.

  “I would have said it can’t be done that fast.”

  “I applied myself.”

  “Apply this, you show-off,” said the cook, making a dismissive gesture that Umbo had been told had something to do with either female body parts, the act of rutting, or defecation—Umbo had been told of many a likely meaning, but none of them seemed right to him.

  But Umbo took no offense—for the cook really meant it as backhanded praise. And the fact that he had done it so quickly was also an indication that something was happening. Had he sped himself up, at least a little? It was a promising start.

  Umbo was up on the passenger deck, the kitchen chores done, when he saw them bringing Loaf—in a cart, manacled and attached to the cart with chains. Apparently his arrest had not gone as smoothly as Rigg’s and Umbo’s.

  The general came out at once, long enough to greet Loaf and give him the run of the ship, as long as Loaf didn’t try to go back on land.

  The general also told the captain they could start the voyage whenever he and his crew were ready. Then the general went back into the captain’s quarters to continue his interview with Rigg. Umbo would have given almost anything to be in that room. Instead, the mate started barking orders and in no time the boat was untied and being poled away from the dock.

  “You think Rigg’s all right in there?” asked Loaf.

  Umbo turned to see that Loaf had come up on the passenger deck.

  But so had the officer who arrested him. When Umbo and Loaf pointedly looked at him, he smiled a bit nastily and said, “The general may have forgotten that you’re prisoners, but I haven’t.”

  Umbo ignored the officer—for Rigg’s method seemed the best, saying nothing and acting as if nothing had been said. “I’m practicing,” Umbo said to Loaf—deliberately making his voice loud enough for the officer to hear. “But the thing I’ve got to do, I don’t know if it’s even possible. There are things you can do for someone else that you just can’t do for you
rself.”

  “Like tickling,” said Loaf.

  “Exactly like that,” said Umbo.

  “What did you mean by that?” demanded the officer.

  “Mean by what?” asked Umbo.

  “‘Tickling.’ Are you speaking in some kind of code?”

  Loaf turned to the officer. “If you don’t understand what we’re talking about, that doesn’t mean you have a right to pester the grownups to explain everything. You’d have to have been with us during our whole journey up till now, and we don’t like you well enough to spend enough time with you to acquaint you with all the particulars.”

  Again with the evil smile. “The general won’t always be here,” said the officer. “Then we’ll see how much you like me.” He went over the ladder and scooted down it to the cargo deck.

  As soon as they were alone, Loaf got to the point. “I’m glad you’re making progress, though I wouldn’t be worried even if you weren’t. One fact is clear: you can learn to do it because you did it. Or will do it.”

  “That’s easy to say when you don’t have to do it.”

  “Right,” said Loaf. “Now, go down and get whatever you plan to take with you, secure it on your body so it won’t fall off in the water, and get back up here right away.”

  “Why?” asked Umbo.

  “Are you daft?” asked Loaf. “Where did your future self find you and Rigg to leave those incomprehensible and useless messages?”

  “Me in my bed in our lodgings, and Rigg there at the coach, while you were already heading up to the tower.”

  “Well, then, unless you can travel through space as well as time, we can’t afford to get too far from O. Don’t you have to be in the exact spot yourself in order to talk to somebody from the past?”

  Umbo nodded. “I’ve got to stay here. In O.”

  “Too late,” said Loaf. “We’re not in O. But that’s fine, we need to go into hiding for a while once we leave this boat, and we’re too well known in O to avoid recapture. Now go and get whatever you want to take and come right back up here.”

  Umbo dashed down the ladder and got to his bags. But he didn’t open them. They contained plenty of fine new clothing, but how could he explain bringing changes of costume up to the passenger deck? No, there was only one thing he really needed to bring with him—and that was in the galley.

  When Umbo charged in the cook barked at him. “I don’t have time for you now, and if you try to snitch something, I warn you: The gruel hasn’t boiled yet and it’s as likely to make you sick as not, so snack at your own peril.”

  “I just forgot something I left where I was peeling turnips,” said Umbo.

  “Then get it and get out,” said the cook.

  The knife was still there, in the fine leather bag Rigg, in his days of wealth, had bought to keep it in. Umbo paused long enough to tie the bag’s strings around his waist and let the knife hang down inside one pantleg. It was very awkward, but he couldn’t think of a better place to conceal it for the time being.

  Up on the passenger deck, Loaf was conversing with the officer again. “The general said we had the run of the ship,” Loaf was saying. “So it’s really none of your business if the boy and I stay together or go our separate ways. If the general wanted us all to stay together, he’d have us in the captain’s quarters with Rigg.”

  Rigg. They were abandoning Rigg!

  But Umbo knew there was no choice. Rigg was going downriver, and there was no way to stop that from happening without getting somebody killed and probably still losing. Umbo had to stay in O because that was where he had to be to give the warnings that they had already received. Loaf had to stay in O because that’s where he had hidden the money and gems. Rigg would understand that.

  “Did you find it?” Loaf asked. Umbo nodded.

  “Find what?” demanded the officer.

  “Your father’s blade in the box your mother kept it in,” said Loaf.

  The officer flared with rage but then backed off. He really was exceeding his authority, and knew it, and didn’t want to have to account to the general because he punished the prisoners for breaking a rule that the general hadn’t imposed.

  Loaf pointedly turned his back on the officer and walked Umbo to the railing at the edge of the upper deck. They both looked down at the river.

  “Now might be a good time to prove you can swim,” said Loaf.

  The river was much narrower in Fall Ford; Umbo had never swum so far. “Can’t we take one of the boats they tow behind?”

  “Can you make shore? Figuring that we swim partly with the current and end up well downstream?”

  “I suppose this means you can swim after all. Or am I supposed to tow you?

  “If you really try,” said Loaf, grinning, “you might not die.”

  “Might not?”

  “Old saying in my village, forget about it. Thing you do, once you’re in the water, swim under the boat and come up the other side, where they’re not looking for us.”

  “Want me to dig up some oysters while I’m down there?”

  “Either you can hold your breath long enough or you’ll die. But go under the boat or they’ll have bolts in you from their crossbows when you come up for air.”

  Umbo started for the stairs. Immediately the officer moved toward them.

  “Get back here,” said Loaf loudly. Umbo did.

  The officer went back to the opposite rail.

  “We go from here,” said Loaf softly.

  Umbo looked straight down.

  “Don’t look there,” said Loaf.

  “What if I can’t clear the deck below?” asked Umbo. “What if I smash against the railing down there and break a leg and then go into the water and drown?”

  “I already thought of that,” said Loaf.

  And without another word he picked Umbo up by the collar of his tunic and the belt around his waist and pitched him over the railing with such force that he landed far beyond the lower deck.

  Not that Umbo had any time to take much note of his surroundings. The shouting began on deck immediately, and when Umbo came up for air the first time, he saw another body hurtling into the water—and to his surprise it was the officer, who was sputtering and choking and calling for help.

  Umbo toyed with the idea of helping him, then decided that it wasn’t his job. Instead, he obeyed Loaf’s instruction and started swimming under the boat. He felt more than heard the boom and splash of Loaf’s arrival in the water. But by then he was in the shadow under the boat. He couldn’t see in the murky river water and felt a terrible fear that he would come up for air and bump his head, finding that he hadn’t swum far enough and now he couldn’t breathe, he’d die for sure . . . but he kept swimming until he felt like his lungs would burst.

  When he finally came up, the boat was well downstream from him, and all the crew were on the other side of the boat, dragging the officer out of the water.

  In a few moments, Loaf popped up about ten yards downstream from Umbo. He knew enough not to wave or make any kind of greeting—anything they did might be seen, anything they said might be heard—sound was tricky, moving across water. But between Umbo letting the current carry him and Loaf treading water against the current, they were close enough to each other to talk quietly.

  Only there was nothing to say except, “Better wait till they’re farther away.”

  The most important thing, though, didn’t get said. Umbo hoped with all his heart that Rigg would understand why they deserted him and jumped out of the boat. Though technically Umbo hadn’t jumped at all.

  After a while, deeming the boat had gotten far enough ahead, Loaf began swimming diagonally toward the shore, and Umbo did the same, not even trying to keep up with Loaf’s long, strong strokes.

  He was in no hurry to get there. Swimming he knew how to do; when he got to shore, he would have to figure out how to go back in time.

  CHAPTER 10

  Citizen

  It took a week before the computers
finished their nineteen separate calculations and the expendable was able to say, “The computers have come up with a set of physical laws that would have to be in force for the two passages through the fold to use up identical energy.”

  “Does this system of physical laws bear any relation to how the real universe has been observed to work?” asked Ram.

  “No,” said the expendable.

  “Please tell the computers to keep recalculating the transition through the fold and out again, into the past and back again but reversed, until they can find a way to balance the energy without violating any observed laws of physics.”

  • • •

  “You will be happy to know,” said the general, closing the cabin door behind him, “that your friend ‘Loaf’—if that’s his name; if that’s a name at all—has been found and brought here, so our company is now complete.”

  Rigg did not allow any emotion to register on his face. In truth, he didn’t know what to feel, except disappointment. And even that was tempered by the fact that Loaf may well have allowed himself to be taken; it would be hard to imagine that they could capture him without a bloody struggle if he didn’t consent.

  To turn the subject away from things that mattered, Rigg said, “I know your rank, sir, but I don’t know your name.”

  He sat at a table across from the general, inside the narrow confines of the captain’s cabin on the riverboat. Outside the room, he could hear the loud sounds of the crew readying the boat for departure.

  The general turned to him with a smile. “Ah, so when we’re alone, you observe the civilities.”

  “And you do not, since you continue not to tell me who you are.”

  “I thought you were so frequently silent because you were frightened. Now I see that, as a royal, you simply did not deign to speak to one of such low station.”

  “I put on no airs when I came into money, and as for being royal, I have no idea how royals would behave if such a thing as royalty existed in the People’s Republic.”